classes

Writers in the Grove, a Forest Grove community creative writing group, presents a 4-week workshop for writers called “Scrivener Basics Workshop.” It runs for 4 week and begins on Thursday, September 21, 2017, from 6:30 – 9:00 PM at the Forest Grove Community and Senior Center in Forest Grove, Oregon.

Dream of writing your memoirs? A novel? That story that’s been nagging you for years?

Scrivener is a “complete writing studio” to help you from idea to final draft. It holds all your ideas, research, and writing in one place, keeping you focused and on track to publishing. It is the affordable writer’s tool that inspires and helps you write that book.

This 4-week workshop covers the basics of Scrivener including imports, organization and layout of your writing, keeping on task, research, and the basics you need to know.

Scrivener offers a free trial version. You will need to download and install the program prior to the first night of class. Prior publishing experience not required. Familiarity with computers is essential.

Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress has been using and teaching workshops and classes on Scrivener for over seven years. Her workshops are educational as well as entertaining. Lorelle has published several books prior to using Scrivener, and many since discovering the writing software program, and it changed her life and her writing. Lorelle has been teaching web publishing, social media, WordPress, and blogging for almost thirty years. Lorelle has also published many tutorials on Scrivener on this site for members and fans of Writers in the Grove and NaNoWriMo.

Bring a copy of a story or collection of stories you’ve written in a word processing program like Microsoft Word on your computer or a flash drive. We will be learning how to import into Scrivener.

You will need to bring your laptop, power cord, mouse (with extra batteries), and something to write on and take notes. You will log into the free WIFI at the Center so ensure you know how to do this before you arrive, or arrive early to get help getting online. It is highly recommended that you bring a water bottle, too. There is plenty of free parking at the center.

There is limited space for this special event so register now to guarantee a seat.

If you are a writer, poet, novelist, or have a small business, a website is required today. This course takes you step-by-step through the process of setting up your own site, helping you learn how to create content and share it through social media from your site for free. Courses like held in Portland normally cost over $400. This is a rare opportunity to learn how to blog and build your own website right here in Washington County, and know that the proceeds go to a good cause.

Writers in the Grove, Forest Grove community creative writing group, presents a 4-week workshop, called “Website Building WordPress Workshop,” beginning September 11, 2017. It runs for four consecutive Mondays from 6:30 – 9:00 PM at the Forest Grove Community and Senior Center in Forest Grove, Oregon.

The course is taught by WordPress instructor, Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress. She has taught WordPress, blogging and social media from the beginning to college level since 2003, and is the long time senior editor of the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress users.

The four-week workshop is only $125 per person, a savings of almost 75% off the normal course fee.

The workshop on WordPress covers the basics on WordPress features, content management, social media integration, blogging, and design and layout with veteran WordPress trainer and instructor. It is ideal for writers and authors, small business, genealogists, and those who wish to share their thoughts and skills with the world.

There is limited space for this special event so register now to guarantee a seat.

You do NOT need a WordPress site. You will set one up on the first day of the course. If you have one, you will learn how to fix it up and improve your web publishing and WordPress skills.

You will need to bring your laptop, power cord, mouse (with extra batteries), and something to write on and take notes. You will log into the free WIFI at the Center so ensure you know how to do this before you arrive, or arrive early to get help getting online. It is highly recommended that you bring a water bottle, too. There is plenty of free parking at the center.

It has been a question posed to many of us. Someone hears that you are attending a creative writing class and the conversation naturally swings. Queries about being published and what kind of book you are writing can catch a person off guard if classes are a new direction.

Not all who attend are published. Everyone doesn’t feel the need to write a book. Some classes are designed simply to work out those mental cobwebs, to strengthen the creative drive, or to enjoy the company of other writers while trying group activities.

The Vernonia Library Writers Group met on 2/18 with the prompt; I was told to write a book…

For those who have no intention of publication, this was a stretch of the imagination, yet the 20 minute silent writing that followed created some interesting thoughts on the possibilities. The prompt also led to discussion regarding the practice of putting your writing out on a limb. Try a prompt that is not your style, something you are not comfortable with, dive in to an outlandish thought. Give those brain cells a good workout and see where it leads you!

The town of Vernonia has several activities planned for St. Patrick’s Day which would be the normal date that the Writer Group would meet, so we are going to be taking the month off to enjoy the festivities with the next class scheduled for April 21 at 6 pm.

In the meantime, attendees are working on a writing prompt: Logical Reasoning. We discussed stories that followed a logical path and those thoughts that do not follow linear reasoning. During the next class on April 21, the group will be dissecting and outlining paragraphs to trace the rational thoughts of a story. Hope to see you there.